pgadmin-org / pgadmin-org/pgadmin4

Major Pain: Make the connection lost warning an option

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#8,279 1 comment 12 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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Feature
Dominant language
Python
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Description

Describe the solution you'd like

My connections to the database the drop relatively quickly.

So I'm constantly getting the "Connection Warning: Cancel/Continue" message box.

E.g., During the daily development and support of my application I may have a half dozen select queries (or "View/Edit Data" | "Filtered Rows") windows open, at any time.

And every time I dive into the code to look up a potential bug, or spend time responding to a support email, the connections to the database will frequently time out.

So when I switch back to pgAdmin, I have to click through the "Connection Warning: Cancel/Continue" message box, on all my query tabs. This can happen a dozen times a day.

So I'm frequently seeing this dialog 50 times a day, which is over 10000 times per year.

I understand from previous chats with Dave Page that it is possible that some databases might be configured to do something special when a connection happens, so the dialog has to be shown to prevent that connection side-effect from happening.

But... I've had to click through this dialog 10000 times this year, 10000 times last year, 10000 the year before (and for the last 12 years!), and I'll have to click through it 10000 times next year, and 10000 times the following year... and never EVER will I do anything other than click "Continue".

Given that the scenario Dave is concerned about is probably pretty rare, can we not just provide a preference to auto-reconnect, so those of us who don't have to worry about connection side-effects don't have to have our workflow interrupted by this irrelevant dialog time tens of thousands of times.

Describe alternatives you've considered

Add a new "Auto reconnect" toggle switch (default = off, so as not to change the behaviour for existing users), under "File" | "Preferences" | "Query Tool" | "Options".

Additional context

The usability of pgAdmin used to be awful, but it has wonderfully improved over the last few years. Awesome! This is now probably one of the biggest remaining usability impediments (i.e., 10000 unnecessary clicks, per year).

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

The issue names no files or tests. Start by tracing the Query Tool connection-warning flow and the File > Preferences > Query Tool > Options settings, then verify that an off-by-default Auto reconnect preference avoids repeated prompts while preserving current behavior.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
postgresql, python
Domain
database
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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